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The Delegations from the Seceding States at Baltimore

Every State in the Union was represented at Charleston. The Convention was full. At a certain stage of the proceedings, the representatives of several of the States saw proper to withdraw. After doing so, they met together to consult as to the proper course for them to pursue. They passed resolutions expressive of their views on the questions in issue before the country, and adjourned.

Their withdrawal from the Convention then in session certainly cannot be held to have excluded them from any future Democratic Convention to which they may be sent; nor from the adjourned session of the Charleston Convention, particularly if they, on their return to their constituents, be again accredited as representatives. South Carolina has refused to participate in several National Democratic Conventions; yet South Carolina Democrats have not been read out of the party, nor have their delegates been excluded from subsequent Conventions. If the Democracy of South Carolina could refuse to take any part in, or to be bound by, the proceedings of one Convention, without excluding them from the pale of the party, or losing their right to representation in subsequent Conventions, surely their delegates could withdraw from such a body without surrendering the rights of those they represented.

The delegation from Alabama, for instance, were instructed in positive terms to pursue a certain course. Knowing that such instructions had been given, by the body which appointed them, they were admitted into the Charleston Convention as Democrats, no voice being raised against their recognition. Did those delegates cease to be Democrats in carrying out their instructions in their letter and spirit? If they did not represent a Democratic constituency, they were not entitled to seats in the National Convention; if their constituents were Democrats then, they are Democrats now, having committed no offense, and been convicted of no crime, since the 23d of April; if the constituency are Democratic, as was admitted by the admission of the Alabama delegation at Charleston, they have a right to be heard at Baltimore, through their regularly accredited agents.

The withdrawal of the Alabama delegates made it necessary for the Democracy of that State to take such action as they thought proper. How should they act? The party had an organized existence in the State. They were in the habit of meeting in State and District Conventions to nominate candidates for the various offices to be filled. They met in State Convention and selected their delegates to Charleston. The Convention at Charleston, after excluding the Wood delegates from New York because they were not regularly accredited, admitted, without objection, the Alabama delegates who were selected by the regular organization of their own State. The organization is an active and efficient one; and the Democrats of Alabama could only act through it.—They have done so. When their representatives went home, and reported what they had done, the Executive Committee of the State, appointed by the State Convention which elected the delegates to Charleston, by the authority vested in them by special resolution, called a new State Convention to determine whether they would be represented at Baltimore, and, if so, by whom. No proceeding was ever more regular. The authority of the last Alabama State Convention was recognized by the National Convention in the prompt admission of the delegates appointed by it; if it had the right to select representatives to Charleston, it unquestionably was authorized to name a State Executive Committee, and define its powers and duties; and, this granted, that Committee not only had the authority to call a new State Convention, but the special action of the power by which it was created made it obligatory upon its members to do so.

The Convention thus called, met at Montgomery, on the 4th inst., and appointed delegates to both Richmond and Baltimore. We believe they indorsed the course of their representatives at Charleston, and reappointed and accredited anew a majority of them to Baltimore. They will go there, in obedience to the will of those who selected them, the only representatives of the Democracy of the State of Alabama. No delegation will be known or recognized but those coming in through the front door, representing a regular organization, and chosen in accordance with the established rules and usages of the party in the State from which they came.

There will be a bogus delegation at Baltimore from Alabama. They will represent no organization. They will not have the semblance of regularity. The meeting by which they were appointed, met, not upon the call of any executive committee, not at the instance of any one authorized to speak for the party, but upon the invitation of a few men acting only for themselves. At best, it was only a mass meeting of men claiming to be Democrats. As such, delegates appointed at it will have no right to appear in a regularly-called Convention consisting of the representatives of State organizations. Their position will not be as good as that of the rejected New York delegation, nor of the rejected Illinois delegation, for both of the latter were appointed by what had some claim to being a regular organization. The bogus delegates from Alabama cannot even plead that the Convention by which they were appointed was called by those who pretended to have any other than their individual authority for what they did. It is as though, after the Executive Committee of Kentucky had called our last State Convention, half a dozen men from Henry and Campbell counties had taken it upon themselves to order another Convention. Of course nobody would have advocated the admission of delegates selected by the unauthorized and illegitimate body which might have assembled under the latter call, in preference to those chosen by the regular Convention.

But the only hope of the Douglasites—their only hope to secure a majority-vote for their favorite and then to break up the Convention without a nomination—is in the admission of the bogus, and the rejection of the regular and legitimate, delegates from Alabama and her sister States. The New York delegation, holding their seats by virtue of the regularity of the organization they represent, dare not sustain the political gamblers who look to this desperate chance for success. No one regarding the future of the party will dare reject the regular delegates. They will be admitted. Their admission seals the fate of the plotters against the peace and welfare of the party.